Star Force: Leonidas (SF96) (Star Force Origin Series) Read online

  1

  May 18, 3560

  Twan System (Expanded Region)

  Heffen

  Nero-22834 stood on the bridge of one of the four Clan Scorpion Invader-class jumpships that had just entered planetary orbit having blown by the Mendz defense ships around the system’s star. Their naval fleet was pathetic compared to Star Force technology, as were most in the Expanded Region, but the forces in this system and on the planet below were definitely hostile despite the lack of initial combat. Plus the Mendz weren’t stupid, thus their defense ships here were keeping their distance, for they knew that Star Force had enough weaponry to blow apart anything they had.

  “Contact the planetary capitol,” Nero said, standing in a comm circle that would transmit his full body image to the planet below when contact was made rather than just a torso or headshot. He was prepared to wait upwards of half an hour to get a reply, but there was no hesitation on the part of the Mendz, for their representative appeared before the Archon in a simulated vid screen into which Nero’s hologram was being translated, for the primitive planet didn’t have hologram technology…nor much else save for a signature natural strength that had allowed them to conquer 4 other nearby systems.

  “State your purpose,” the snarling, cat-like face said in a loosely diplomatic tone.

  “You are in violation of the treaty of Adorez. Per stipulations agreed to 53 years ago, your planet is now forfeit and Clan Scorpion is here to claim it.”

  “We no longer acknowledge that treaty or your legitimacy. The Mendz will do as they please and will not be beholden to others, including your Star Force.”

  “This is not a negotiation,” Nero said without missing a beat. “We are here to take possession of the planet. I expect to fight, but am obligated to give you a chance to surrender.”

  “You know that we will not.”

  “Of course, but protocol must be followed and your deaths chosen by you. We’re not the murdering butchers, after all.”

  “Your offer is dismissed. While we cannot match you in orbit, but you cannot take this world. Our planetary shields will not fall and our Tabers cannot be overcome beneath them. The idea that we would surrender to 4 of your vessels is insulting. If you wish to do battle bring a bigger army, otherwise do not waste our time.”

  “These are all we’re using, and I’ll grant your space forces immunity from attack so long as they reciprocate and do not attempt to assist the forces on the ground…where we both know this will be settled.”

  “Settled? If we defeat you, you will send another larger force to try again.”

  “That’s always an option, but our forces have better things to do than overwhelm you. My four ships are sufficient to defeat you, though it will be something of a challenge. If we get sloppy, you might prevail.”

  “And a warrior deserves a challenge.”

  “You wouldn’t know,” Nero said icily. “You kill the helpless and gang up on the weak. When have you ever fought a fair fight?”

  “Is it our fault they don’t oppose us more?”

  “It’s your fault in your choice of targets. We gave you a chance with the treaty and now you’ve wasted it. People who don’t learn will be conquered, and now you fall into that category.”

  “Then let us broker one more deal. One which we cannot back out of.”

  “The time for deals is over. This world will be ours one way or another. Surrender or fight.”

  “We intend to fight, but we have something you want and I’m willing to trade.”

  “And that is?”

  “Hostages.”

  Nero’s face turned grim. “Who?”

  “Slaves taken from Vishaw and Belni, numbering somewhere around 230,000. I will trade you all of them in exchange for your word.”

  “My word?”

  “That this invasion that you have chosen will settle the matter between us. Your four ships vs our entire planet. If you truly believe you can defeat us with so little, swear to it. If we win, Star Force will never enter this system again. If you win, we will be dead but you will have your hostages as well.”

  “And if I don’t agree, you’ll do what with them?”

  “Whatever we please, but you will not be allowed to retrieve them. Star Force’s word is good, and there are some neutral observers here that can witness. We agree to fight with what we have in this system and it will settle the outcome between us. Our word you do not have to trust…”

  “Nor would I.”

  “…but yours is trusted. Should you break it here others would know. I challenge you to fight for this world with the forces you have brought and to live with the permanent outcome.”

  “And your other worlds?”

  “Irrelevant. I want immunity for this one.”

  “So you can base out of here to hunt in others as much as you want with a sanctuary to return to that we won’t hit?”

  “I see we understand one another.”

  “And you think the hostages are worth that?”

  “What I think doesn’t matter. It’s what you think and if you are sufficiently ranked to make a promise that others will hold to.”

  “I have the rank,” the ViLord promised. “So surrender is totally off the table?”

  “It is.”

  “Even for your civilians?”

  “What becomes of them after I am dead is not my concern. The military will fight to the death.”

  “Then let us make this a military fight,” Nero said, entertaining his unusual willingness to negotiate terms of battle. Usually most people negotiated to avoid battle, but the Mendz had a fighter mentality that the Archon was already well aware of having led a few Clan Scorpion units in support of the local defense forces on the worlds that the Mendz had expanded to. With his help they’d pushed them back from some planets and continents, but this was their homeworld and he’d successfully argued for 4 full Invaders to take these guys out…otherwise no one would have, for the entire Expanded Region was too large and too wild to control save for a sprinkling of Star Force worlds and a few roaming patrols that Nero was a part of.

  “Meaning?” the Mendz asked.

  “If we take cities and regions from you, your civilians will not attempt sabotage or suicide after the combat has subsided. They become the property of the victor along with the buildings and other assets at those locations. There will also be no destruction of such assets in order to avoid the enemy capturing them. I am referring to non-military assets.”

  “You want our people alive?”

  “If I wanted you dead I’d just bombard the planet.”

  “You don’t have the firepower to get past our shields.”

  “After I took your shields down through a ground assault,” Nero clarified.

  “Warrior vs warrior then?”

  “I don’t consider you warriors, but your point is taken. Yes, military to military only, though your civilians can assist you during combat if they wish. But afterwards, they must behave as property. Do you have the rank to achieve that?”

  “Those who do are listening.”

  “Compliance of your civilians would be required for us to hold to the agreement. Should they not behave as instructed during the battle and we should lose, their misbehavior negates the immunity agreement.”

  “Interesting. So you are comfortable with the basic arrangement?”

  “We can beat you with 4 ships, so yes, I’m comfortable with the basic arrangement.”

  “One moment please,” the Mendz said, with the screen turning to oscillating static.

  “What are you doing?” an Archon ranger asked him, standing a few
steps out of view.

  “I didn’t expect this, so I’m just going with it.”

  “We’d really promise to never come back?”

  “If I made the deal Star Force would honor it…especially since nobody cares about what’s happening out here with all the combat going down in the Rim Region and the possibility of more on the lizard border.”

  “But they don’t know that?” she asked deviously.

  “No, they don’t,” Nero said with a smirk. “Do you think we can win?”

  Before she could answer the comm line returned and the same Mendz appeared with a bit of movement coming into view from the right from wherever he had just been.

  “Civilians will behave as property of the owner of each city and geographical region. Planetary defense assets will not be targeted, and in return we will allow you an immune surface base in a variety of possible locations that we stipulate and you will choose from. Access to and from the surface will be available from that point continuously, but the remainder of the defense shields will remain raised.”

  “Accepted.”

  “We also want a time limit so you cannot stall inside your base. How long do you believe you will need to conquer the planet?”

  Nero glanced to the side and used some telepathic controls to bring up planetary data he’d already become familiar with. “There are 853 major cities on the planet. We will complete conquest within 20 years.”

  “Too long.”

  “18, but once a city has been held for 2 continuous years it become immune to counterattack.”

  The Mendz’s eyes focused off screen for a moment.

  “10 years.”

  Nero shook his head. “No. We do not have the troops to spread out in defensive allotments across the planet. In exchange for preserving your shield generators and planetary defense batteries for use against non-Star Force units in the eventuality that we fail and leave, we have to be granted the ability to fight and claim territory without the burden of excessive defensive measures. If you wish less than 18 years then the timeframe for immunity has to be lower than 2 years. You may be in a hurry to gain your immunity, but do you fear we will have an advantage in the long term?”

  “15 and 1.8, with reconquest resetting the immunity timer.”

  “Contingent on every individual brought here from other worlds be released to us. If we find evidence that even one wasn’t turned over, it nullifies the agreement.”

  “You want our other slaves as well?”

  “Slaves, prisoners, anyone who was brought here. Let’s just clear the battlefield of everyone but your people.”

  “1.9 in exchange for that caveat.”

  “Agreed, with an immunity for any craft we arrange to visit the system to evacuate the people being turned over to us. We won’t have enough room on our ships, so we’ll have to contract out with others and I want them untouched.”

  “And the same will hold to our ships coming and leaving the system?”

  “The fight will only be on the surface and in atmosphere, and transports coming up and down from our immune base will also be immune with a geographical corridor established to denote proper boundaries.”

  “Then we are in accord. Even one city possessed by us at the end of 15 years will result in our victory and you will leave to never return?”

  “Yes…contingent that you hold to all agreed upon terms.”

  “We will.”

  “Base locations?”

  “We will designate regions to choose from soon, then come to an accord for the exact parameters of the immune base.”

  “And you want to think it through carefully?”

  “We will not take long,” the Mendz said, cutting the comm enroute to conferring with the other vermin on how best to work their strategy. Possession of the planet had just become a war game and he expected them to work every advantage they could manufacture.

  “I hope you know what you’re doing,” the ranger said as other bridge crew were giving him odd looks. “Orbital bombardment was our most potent weapon.”

  “And it bought us hostages that we otherwise would have tried to rescue or seen thrown up in front of us as living shields. We should have a clean battlefield now, and access to the surface.”

  “But we can’t snipe their mechs from orbit…and they have far more than we do.”

  “Their Tabers are junk. If we’re good, we can work through them over time.”

  “They’re going to play for time.”

  “Of course they are, but this is a challenge worthy of our Clan rather than an automatic win…and I’m not disappointed with that when it’s what enables us to secure hostages.”

  “Are you sure we can do this with the numbers we have and the timeframe? Attrition alone…”

  “We’ve got our work cut out for us,” Nero said, turning to an Archon striker on the other side of him. “Assemble all mechwarriors in the pit and link in the other three ships.”

  “What about the pilots and infantry?”

  “Key them in through relays, but keep them in separate locations. In fact, key in everyone on the ships no matter where they are.”

  “How long?”

  “Half hour.”

  “Going,” the striker said, disappearing from the bridge as Nero sat back down in his command chair and began pulling up some data. They all had a lot of work to do, for he’d given the Mendz a significant advantage in order to get the deal…but he knew his Clan could still pull this off.

  “Plans have changed,” Nero said as he stood on a small platform in the middle of a circular briefing room with tiered seats ringing him on all sides in which sat the mechwarriors assigned to this ship whether they be Archons or Regulars. A few small screens on the podium in front of Nero showed the other pits holding the mechwarriors on the other three ships who would be seeing a hologram of the Archon so detailed it would look like he was actually there.

  All four ships were sitting in orbit alongside one another so lag wasn’t an issue, but unlike typical Warship-class jumpships the Invaders only carried 12-20 drones each as opposed to the standard 60-100. The rest of the interior of the Invaders was made up of cargo and living space meant to accommodate the mechs onboard. Clan Scorpion was a mech-centered civilization and as such they and several others used the Invader-class jumpships to ferry around ground assault teams with a mech-heavy focus. The naval drones were meant for ship defense and limited offensive options necessary to get the mechs to ground and support them.

  The same went for the limited aerial and infantry, who on the Invaders were meant purely for support operations. The mechs were the combat method of choice and as such the Invaders carried a lot of them. Each ship carried between 1000-1800 mechs, but typically only had 500 mechwarriors…a full galaxy each, meaning a total of 2000 for this invasion with multiple mechs available to them along with repair facilities that were capable of fabricating entirely new machines given the right materials, though he didn’t have the resource gathering teams for that. Clan Scorpion was going to have to conserve their battle machines, otherwise the Mendz could win just by damaging them in losing battles.

  “The mission we came here to accomplish has changed,” Nero began, addressing those seated in front of him and those behind his back, but he wouldn’t be rotating around to give everyone a look at his face. Such juvenile techniques were for speech makers and Nero was a warrior along with everyone else in this room. They could hear just fine looking at his back, but a hologram of the planet popped up above his head that gave them something that everyone could see as it slowly spun around.

  “We are still going to conquer this world, but in order to get a large number of hostages that the Mendz have taken from other worlds we have negotiated the terms of battle. We only have the four ships we brought without the option of reinforcement and 15 years to take every city on this planet without the help of orbital bombardment. If we cannot do that then we lose, withdraw, and never return. The Mendz want a planet of their own
that Star Force will not touch, and I’ve accepted their offer in order to get the hostages out.”

  “That means we have a tough fight ahead of us rather than a cleanup mission. We knew we were outnumbered coming here, but the Mendz were never really a threat to beat us. Now they are, because we can’t take our time. Their Tabers are crap, but if they can take out or even damage one of our mechs for every 100 we kill they will win by attrition. This cannot be a battle for kills. It has to be for cities. We take one and hold it for 1.9 years and it becomes ours permanently. We won’t have to defend it after that point. If the Mendz try anything devious then they break the deal, at which point we’ll already have the hostages so they lose out…which is why I think they’ll hold to the terms.”

  “We have to fight, kill, and keep from taking damage…with an emphasis on the latter. If we get too cautious we will take ground too slowly. There are 853 cities, which means we have to take a city every 6.4 days on average to conquer the planet in 15 years. That is doable, but difficult without letting the attrition eat us away. I’ll be arranging for shipments of food to supplement our supplies, but we will not be getting any replacement war material per the terms of this deal. We will be salvaging as many damaged or destroyed mechs as we can, so if at all possible defend the debris and don’t let the Mendz take it or destroy it further.”

  “I can’t over emphasize this point. Time and attrition are our enemies as much as the Mendz are, and expect them to be smart enough to use them against us at every turn. We can’t afford to be better than the enemy this time. If we are, we lose. We have to be way better to pull this off, and I want input from all of you on any possible advantage or disadvantage you spot over the next 15 years. Do not assume anything is frivolous. We have a supply cap people. And if you don’t know what that means I suggest you take to the video game archives and learn how much of a bitch it can be...”

  2

  August 11, 3560

  Twan System (Expanded Region)

  Heffen

  Sarah Averdy climbed into the cockpit of a waiting Nova Cat-class mech, sliding in through the back hatch then sealing herself inside with heavy armor plates covering the entrance. Stripping down to her underwear, she stowed her clothing and shoes in an optional side compartment before stepping down into the control sphere. Once inside, the mech began scanning her mind and allowed her to interface with its controls remotely with her prompting several hatches nearby to open and extrude mechanical arms that came up next to her body.